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Sean Daily is an English major from New Jersey now living in Las Vegas, the Other City of Lights. "I consider 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' to be comfort reading, I like the al pastor tacos at Tacos Mexico and I count among my literary influences the Chainsaw from 'Doom'. 'RRRRRR! You don't like that, do you, Mr. Undead Marine! RRRRRR!'"

Shanoah Alkire is our Discordian at large. "Born in Santa Cruz, I grew up in Grass Valley and the Bay Area, and now lurk in Las Vegas. My literary influences include Ray Bradbury,
Lewis Carroll, and Douglas Adams. I also program as a hobby,
and currently maintain the Gtk port of Angband. You can find
a rather old bio of me here."

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Posts Tagged ‘Cory Doctorow’

Have you ever found yourself thinking, “Gee, I really want a Cyber/Steampunk Futuresque Sci-Fi Hand Gun prop, but I don’t know how to build one?” If you have, then you may want to up the dosage on your medication.

If, after doing so, you still want to get your sticky little hands on a fairly bitchen gun, like this…

He/she/it/they have step-by-step instructions at http://www.instructables.com/id/Steampunk-Futuresque-Sci-Fi-Hand-Gun/ to build your own break-open prop gun, which is reminiscent of Decker’s gun from Blade Runner and comes complete with light effects. I also like the grip – less a modern pistol grip and more the curved handle of a flintlock pistol. Probably makes it harder to aim, but it’s a nice combo of old and new.

As he/she/it/they write on Instructables.com, which may just become my new favoritest site of all time:

This is a project I’ve been working on for a few weeks now. I basically wanted a cool hand gun. I didn’t fancy any replica movie props, and the law makes it hard to buy normal replica guns. so i made my own.

“So I made my own.” Gotta love it. English majors with zero mechanical sense and aptitude (like me) are always fascinated by people who can hack reality in their own image like this – people who can take a seemingly-random pile of parts and a plan and just build something. I’m sorry to say this, Shanoah but… you can buy a ray gun, sure. But going all mad scientist and actually making your own is just so much more impressive. (And it probably won’t cost you $690 like those Dr. Grordbort’s ray guns, either, grumble grumble).

Wish I could, Shanoah, but I loaned my copy of Fear and Loathing to my sister. I was spending too much time – much much too much time – reading it.

Instead, I’d like to submit for your approval the consequences of letting an anime fan with a Mario custom level editor get bored. What you get is poor Mario, the once mighty plumber, koopa slayer and mild Italian ethnic slur, reduced to the role of rhythm track for an anime soundtrack mashup.

As far as I can tell, Mario does little more than walk/run right, jump and bounce off stuff like a crack-addled squirrel through ingeniously – and anally – engineered levels. From such simple behavior comes wonderful things: Mario bounces off of objects and activates events in precise accompaniment to the music. Even the in-game sound effects complement the music, indicating cataloging and cross-referencing bordering on the obsessive.

But the planning for this must have been hideous. I shudder to think of the sleepless nights that went into this and the bleary-eyed, homocidal look on the editor’s face when events didn’t just sync up.

His (or her) Mario world editing skeelz are mad, crazy mad, and I bow down before them.

This is something you’ll appreciate, Shanoah, being a Buffy and Firefly fan (BTW, I have your boxed set of Firefly at my house). Seems as though fans of Joss Whedon’s new show Dollhouselaunched a campaign to prevent it suffering the fate of another Whedon series, the much-lamented Firefly.

You say you haven’t seen Dollhouse in your local TV lineup? That’s because FOX (the guys who killed Firefly, BTW) won’t be airing it for another eight months.

According to Wired’s blog Underwire, which reported the story on May 23:

Fearing Dollhouse will get booted off the air, just like the Joss Whedon-helmed show Firefly, fans are plotting and organizing their efforts in online forums.

Led by DollhouseForums.com, the campaign urges followers to organize viewing parties, watch the trailers online, buy Dollhouse-endorsed merch and create more fan sites.

After seeing some of my favorite television shows get cancelled in the past — as well as the “save this show” campaigns that followed — I had the idea that a fan campaign BEFORE the show begins may be the best thing to do.

Maybe not such a negative campaign directed towards saving it from getting cancelled, but something that will get fans motivated to promote Dollhouse to friends/family/coworkers before it airs is smarter than doing it once it’s in danger! If we plan now, we may be able to have several ideas planned by the premiere to make people watch and actually make advertisers want to be associated with the show.

The overall idea is to encourage Joss/Buffy/Angel/Firefly fans to promote the show everywhere in addition to FOX’s usual promotional/viral methods.

Whedonistas have witnessed so many kick-ass TV shows cancelled by callous goons from teeveeland, they’re girding their loins for the inevitable fight and not waiting around for the disappointment before working up a good head of bitter outrage. Good on ’em! Preemptive strikes are just defense as practiced by precogs.